I want you to turn back in your
Bibles to Hebrews chapter 10, if you will, so that we can take
our final look at this portion of Scripture, this crucial text
of Scripture designed to warn us, to make our calling and election
sure. If you're ever in doubt as to
why the Scriptures give us so many warnings, why does it do
that? If you struggle with being able
to put two plus two together, it seems to me that religious
folk have a hard time understanding the logic of the Word of God.
I mean, we can get every other discipline in the world. We can
accomplish it, get degrees in it to the nth degree. We can
follow logical syllogisms and theories and Quotients and ideas
and we can go to the moon and we're trying to go to Mars and
we're building whole Societies way out there in the universe
way out there in the galaxies But when it comes to the Word
of God warning the people of God to make their calling and
election sure we struggle with that So let me make it very simple
for you where you find yourself passing through those portions
of Scripture That says keep it real with God. I All it's saying
is, keep it real with God. That's all. We get discombobulated. Why God talking to me like that? Because he wants you to keep
it real with him. See, the one thing about the
gospel is it demands authenticity. Because religion is a wholesale
system of fraud. And the thing that you and I
know how to do best is perpetrate a fraud. We can easily be something
that we're not. And the goal of humanity when
we are blinded by the devil's delusions is to even deceive
God into making God think we are right with God. When with
God even the light is darkness. Now you know you bad when you
can see the light and the darkness just alike. But the struggle
that religious folks often have is putting on fig leaves. in
pretending to be something that they're not. And then when God
is coming along to say, hey, hey, hey, fig leaves won't work.
I want a real relationship. I got better clothes for you
than fig leaves. And we get to saying, you know,
why is God talking to me like this? So because he wants to
keep you out of hell. You know what's interesting about
the title of our message is he that believeth not shall be damned. What a message. What if we, if
all of the folks that go to grace, we got about 700 folks that come
to grace, what if we all just permeated the neighborhood and
knocked on the doors and say, our pastor is preaching on this
topic today. He that believe it not shall
be damned. Would that be a politically correct
message to ask somebody to come to church and listen to? And
yet, let me share something with you about that particular proposition,
that statement. It came from the highest authority
in the universe. You get no higher than God and
his spokesperson, his darling son, Jesus Christ, who is the
truth, by the way. So when Jesus said he that believeth
not shall be damned, guess what? That's the truth. Now the only
other thing I want to do when once I have settled the fact
that the highest authority in the world said that, not Jesse
Gistan or Grace Bible Church or some other human fallible
weak given to potentially misinterpreting the Word of God or the purposes
of God or salvation. When once I have settled the
fact that God said this, now I want to be about the business
of understanding what unbelief is all about. Because that's
the one thing that will send the world to hell. Not believing
on God through Christ. It's a very serious matter. So
we're working our way through the warning given in Hebrews
chapter 10 to us, verses 26 through verse 39. And I want to revisit
that today under the points and headings in your outline to just
kind of Seal the deal with us about being authentic with God
I I want to be able to make sure that when I pass through those
portions of scripture in my own life That I'm honest with God
that I can I can feel the threat. I can feel the weight I can feel
the danger of the warning of those passages because I'm human
and mortal and I'm prone to wonder I and I'm inclined to temptations
like every man. I am not above the apostate by
nature. I'm not above the reprobate.
I'm inclined, just like the reprobate, to play games with God, to use
my intellectual skills to justify my own ends and to manipulate
myself and ultimately deceive myself to the point of destroying
my own soul. I'm not above being corrected
by the Word of God. How about you? And so, you know,
if God loves me enough to chastise me to make sure that I don't
cross those lines, I want that. And so that's why we're here
one more time before we move on to the 11th and 12th chapters,
which gives us much more of a forward-looking view of the nature and character
of faith. Hebrews is about faith. It's
much more about faith than the area of the response of the people
of God towards that great, great revelation of the promises of
God in their life. And I'm looking forward to talking
to you out of the chapter 11 of the book of Hebrews, but we
still have to answer some questions here in this very, very, very
ominous and threatening and apprehensive portion of Scripture which has
troubled many souls for millenniums. Verse 26, for if we sin willfully
after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there
remains no more sacrifice for sin. What I said to you last
week was You have to anchor the statement here and the phraseology
in the context. Sinning willfully is not the
general idea of what you and I find ourselves doing every
day when we fall short of the glory of God in all that we do,
because we do, don't we? Every day we find ourselves falling
short of the glory of God in everything we do. When we attempt
to do what's right, we are only attempting to do what's right
by the grace of God. And even when we attempt to do
what's right, we fail to achieve it completely because we're still
flawed sinners. So if God were to weigh my attempts
as even though my motive is right, My attempts would fail the perfection
that's necessary for perfect obedience. And yet we're still
compelled to try because God's people are called to do the will
of God. Our confidence does not lie in
our failure. Our confidence does not lie in
our trying. Our confidence lies in the success
of Jesus Christ who already did it for us and actually accomplished
it. We do it because we love God
and we are his children and he has called us to obey him. As
far short as we fall, we still seek to obey our God because
we love him. Isn't that right? Trying to help
us understand then that the willful sinning of our text is confined
merely to one primary topic. And that is rejecting the claims
of God concerning his salvation, which he has accomplished in
Jesus Christ. The willful sinning in our text,
the persistent ongoing sinning or rejection of what God has
plainly said is the only manner or way in which people can be
saved and that's through Jesus Christ. If we sin willfully against
the revelation of God's glory in Christ, against the once for
all sacrifice that we have already talked about, against the perfections
of a great mediator who is both God and man, against a covenant
of grace that has been given to us in all of its fullness
and freedom and promise. If we sin against the claims
of the gospel, which says to the sinner, come just as you
are, I can fix your problem. When you sin against that, you
set yourself up for damnation. That's what we're talking about,
okay? So here's how we're going to work this through. How do
you have a group of people over here rejoicing in that grace
that is broader than our transgressions? Broader than the scope of my
transgressions singing and rejoicing and thanking God for the reality
of a Person whose love and sacrifice is so full that every one of
my sins are put away in him We can sing that with great joy
right today How do you go from that today to over here saying
one day? I don't believe that at all You
know, I used to go to church I used to hear a pastor talk
like that. I used to actually believe those
propositions and those ideas. But I don't at all believe that
today. How do you go from that to this? Because this is what the writer
is warning about. It's called apostasy. It's where
you once stood over against with and for God in the claims of
His truth and then one day you walked over to the other side
to stand in opposition to what God said, to what you used to
believe, or used to allege to believe, or used to profess to
believe, and no longer believing that. That's where we want to
exercise our senses today. How does that happen? How does
a man go from ostensibly believing the glorious claims of the free
grace of God in Christ to saying, you know what? I don't believe
that anymore. How do you go from a Judas who
was with the twelve, to him becoming a pointer to betray Jesus so
that he was crucified. How do you go from being a follower
of Christ in the ministry of the Apostle Paul to becoming
an Alexander the coppersmith? A fire lemus are some of the
other bandits in the New Testament who have become enemies of the
cross. How do you go from? Being a part of the family of
God as it were to now being an enemy of the gospel These are
the things we want to work through So our first point is investigating
Sending willfully as a matter of the heart against the gospel.
I want you to mark The emphasis of that first point sending willfully
is a matter of the what? against the gospel It's a matter
of the heart against the gospel. So I want to try to work through
these points fairly quickly. And I think if you're people
who have Bibles, you'll be able to search these things out for
yourself. You remember what the proverb says, guard your heart
for out of it are all the issues of life. So therefore, Aspects
of the heart that I want us to consider which becomes the means
and grounds for which men and women draw away from God remember
what God's appeal was back in the 22nd verse of chapter 10
remember his appeal was let us draw near unto him and There
are four conditions of the heart that will cause the man or the
woman or the church or the denomination, and we have denominations today,
ladies and gentlemen, apostatizing and departing from biblical truth
everywhere in the world. No longer claiming to believe
in the inspiration of Scripture and the infallibility of Scripture
and the inerrancy of Scripture. No longer claiming to believe
in the singularity of the one true and living God. No longer
claiming to believe in the doctrines of salvation that are exclusively
accomplished by this true and living God. No longer claiming
to believe in what salvation is, man's condition, his need,
and the remedy that God has for him. There are multitudes who
have abandoned all of these essential truths. How did it happen? The heart. The heart. So there are four kinds of heart
that I want us to consider. The apostate has neglected to
watch his heart. The Hebrew writer tells us about
the first heart in Hebrews chapter 3, verses 12 through 15, if you
go there. And this is what I describe as
the hardened heart. the hardened heart, the hardening
of one's heart. Here's what the Hebrew writer
warns as he opens up his writing to the saints. In verse 12, take
heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of
unbelief in departing from the living God. Didn't he start talking
about apostasy early on in the book? In departing from the living
God. Now watch this, but exhort one
another, what? Now isn't that what the 10th
chapter said? That we are to manifest our drawing
near to God by a love for God, a worship of God, a maintaining
of biblical truth in our own calling and profession as believers,
and then to demonstrate the fervor and passion and love for the
saints of God to exhort the people every day to look to Christ,
to trust Him, to walk authentically with God. And yet he's saying
the same thing here in chapter 3, verse 13. He says, Exhort
one another daily while it is called today. In the Hebrew writer's
mind, there's a day coming when all this stops. Do you believe
that? Lest any of you be what? Now here's what he says. The
remedy for keeping the heart from being hardened is exhortation. Now by the way, if you don't
know what exhortation is, it's the preaching and teaching of
the Word of God. It's actually what you get when
you come to church or when you gather together in small groups
and where the Word of God is open or where men and women are
so full of the Word of God that they can encourage you from the
scriptures. You know those saints that kind
of agitate you, as we talked about last week, who are more
ready to talk about God than people and things? And then when
they get an opportunity to want to actually have a dialogue or
a conversation around spiritual things, they're encouraging you,
they're seeking to build you up, they're seeking to strengthen
you in the faith because they know the man or the woman or
the family or the people who have their mind stayed on God,
they have the benefit of a perpetual peace against the storms that
come in this life. They know that. And so they're
encouraging. Plus, they are compelled by the love of God to want to
make sure that you are one of the pilgrims on the pilgrim's
journey to the celestial city. And they want to be your helper.
See, we're called to be helpers of each other's faith. Am I making
some sense? And so this is what the Hebrew
writer is seeking to do. He says, make sure you exhort
one. You want to make sure the heart doesn't become as calloused
and as hard as stone. Make sure the heart is exposed
to the preaching of the word Make sure it's exposed to the
ministry of the spirit of god Who will work through the word
to penetrate the soul and cut the lights on and show you where
you're messing up at Isn't that what he does? And then woo you
by his grace back to the throne of grace where you can find mercy
in time of trouble and in time of need listen to what he says
exhort one another daily while it's called today lest any of
you be hardened through the what see listen and i'm not going
to treat this long because i i i i trust you can understand his argument
he says our hearts will harden because of the deceitfulness
of sin here's what i'm going to say about that and i've observed
this in my own life and in the life of others and particularly
as a pastor and an overseer And a family man, more so, is this. When you and I are allowing our
hearts to be hardened, it's being hardened through a sin or a set
of sins that we have been allured into, are drawn by, which has
deceived us. Okay? Now, all I need is one
witness in the house. Do saints go through temporary
deception. Are there momentary lapses in
our life where we forget who we are in Christ? Do we wake
up some days forgetting what we are and who we are? See, this
is a deceitfulness that takes place because of sin that actually
brings you into a... Here's what it is. Hardening
of the heart is a choice that we make not to actually do what
we know is right. Did you get that? Let me help
you now. I'm going to cut the lights on.
Here we go. Here we go. 1 John 5, verse 17 says... Now watch this. The man that
knows to do good and does not do it, it is sin. See what I'm getting at? So you
know we have this situation before us where we are desiring something
or wanting something or longing for something and then we have
a knowledge of that thing and the knowledge says that's not
good for you. Now we have now at that moment a crossroads of
which we have to make a decision. Either we're going to be compliable
to biblical truth and walk in the light we are called children
of the light are we're going to what are we gonna do hard
in our heart and Go in the opposite direction Are you hearing what
I'm saying? Do the people of God do that
are there consequences for it? Absolutely. And so the Hebrew
writer makes it very clear. I want you to hear I want to
I want you to hear the premise for which he gives this warning
verse 14 for we are made partakers of Christ if We hold the beginning
of our confidence, what? Steadfast until the end while
it is said today, if you will hear his voice, not tomorrow,
not next week, today, if you will hear his voice, what? Harden
not your hearts. So the Spirit of God would be
speaking to some of us right now about issues in our life
where we have hardened our heart. He has clearly and He has explicitly
shown us in the Word of God in providential circumstances. You
know how when He gives you every necessary evidence to let you
know you're going in the wrong direction and you still oppose
Him? The basic integrity and character
for which we would warn brothers and sisters to quit playing games
with God is we got to finish this race. And I can share this truth with
you. Some people here won't finish. That's the nature of the gospel.
Are you hearing me? So we, the hardening of the heart
is simply to oppose what is right. What happens is our, our moral
intuition, that thing on the inside of us, that, that moral
compass we all have, unless we're reprobate, we all have one. You
know that, right? It's called the conscience. That moral compass
called the conscience that God put in every human being. This
is what makes us different than the animals. We are created in
his image. So that the barbarian knows what's right and wrong
intuitively is called a moral intuition in the soul of man
where he knows not to kill, steal, commit adultery, and all those
other heinous crimes, even down to lying. We know that. You don't
have to have an external code to know that unless you're crazy.
Now we have a few people whose moral compass is out of kilter
because they're nutty, right? And they have to have that adjusted.
But most of us know this is the way God will judge the pagan
on the last day. He won't have to say, did you
have a Bible? No. He wrote the law on their
conscience and on their heart. We learned this in our women's
theology class this week. Abraham thought that the folks
over in Egypt, in Gerard, were folks that didn't fear God. They
said, we fear God. Get out of here, Abraham. You're
trying to kill us. And they didn't even know God. But God had written
his law on their hearts, so every human being deals with God every
day. Did you know that? One of the things I tell brothers
and sisters in apologetics, and when you are dealing with people
on an evangelical level, don't ask them whether they know whether
or not there's a God. They know. Don't argue from that
kind of weak premise. Argue from the strong premise
of what the scripture says. Now, sir, ma'am, you know there's
a God. Can I ask you something about
that fact? See, I'm not going to let them
make a false premise and then have to try to argue through
that false premise. Everyone knows there's a God. Everyone knows right and wrong,
even if your right and wrong is relative. And that is you
kind of shape laws that actually cater to your own felt needs.
And then you want to kind of be holier than everybody else
and say, you know, to each his own. Until I come and violate
your laws, then all of a sudden you want to punish me. Now, why
is that? Because you were made in the
image of God and the wages of sin is death. And we all want
retribution when somebody dogs us. Are you hearing what I'm
saying? See, one of the things we are
doing when we preach the gospel and teach the word of God is
to cut the lights on on the deceitfulness of the heart, where mankind seeks
to deceive himself against the truth of God, which is made known
everywhere. The problem that we really have
is the deception that goes on in the church, where we play
games with God and end up by the deceitfulness of our own
heart to harden ourselves on a perpetual level against the
truth of God. There's another category that
we have to watch out for too, and that's the category of the
divided heart. James chapter 1 verses 5 through
8. You heard this. I want to share this with you.
We have to be careful about this one too, the divided heart. So
we've talked just a bit about the hardening of the heart. That's
probably, ladies and gentlemen, one of the most frequent areas
in which you will struggle with your sins. It's the area that
is most secret and most private, the hardening of the heart, which
allows you to make choices wherein you get in trouble. And it's
the place where no one can actually see it that well and therefore
not actually enter into a discussion or debate with you on it. It's
that secret place in the heart that only you and God knows.
Unless that individual who is about you, husband, wife or family
member, is really keen on the way you manipulate yourself and
then they'll tell you, you're deceiving yourself again. We're
talking about the double minded person or the double hearted
person. This becomes a problem too that will keep you from drawing
near to God. Here's what James says. If any
of you lack wisdom, let him do what? Yeah, but see, here's the
problem with the folks that lack wisdom and have double hearts.
They don't like to settle with God's answer. So I want you to
understand the double-hearted person. This is a person that
you will talk with and engage with on lots of ideas and lots
of levels and more particularly for those of us who are Christian
on a theological level. And these are people who will
take what you say and keep it at arm's length and never ever
commit to it. You know those people who go
around getting opinions from everybody? ever learning but
never coming to a solid conviction about what truth is this is the
double-minded person this is the person who will never ever
commit to the truth this is a problem in the heart isn't it now listen
to what James says about this kind of heart. Now, and that
person is the relativist today. Your relativist, the individual,
again, who is pluralistic in his mindset, who really wants
a world where everybody is free to do whatever they want to do.
Because if we really are confined to absolute principles of truth,
then we're not free to do whatever we want to do. We're free only
to do what's right. Are you hearing me? Listen to
what he says. If you lack wisdom, ask of God.
because God gives to all liberally up and up un-up braided knot
that is he won't chide you he'll just give it to you if you ask
him but let that person ask and what that's the problem that's
the problem and not what it's a metaphor for being tossed to
and fro on the waves of the sea for he that wavereth is like
a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let
not that man think that he shall receive anything from the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable
in all his ways. Literally speaking to be double-minded
is to be divided in your heart It simply means to not take a
stand not commit not had an allegiance to the truth remember in the
days of Elijah when he was fighting against the false prophets of
Jezebel and the the false prophets of Israel, 450 prophets of Jezebel,
400 prophets of false prophets of Israel, 800 and some prophets
to one true prophet. And you know what he said to
Israel? He says, why are you halting between two opinions?
If Jehovah be God, take your place with Him. If not, take
your place with all the idols of the land. You know what Elijah
was saying? Stop being double-minded. But
what I'm getting at is that the enemy has taken double-mindedness
today and actually made it a virtue. He's made it a virtue. Do you
guys understand where I'm going with that? That if you are a
person who has reached high levels of intelligence, You've gone
to school and acquired higher learning and you have been exposed
to all of the different world views and maybe even studied
comparative religions and have gotten yourself into a class
on philosophy and arguments. Now you have all the tools necessary
to keep four and five and six different categories of possible
rights and never land on one. because you're too smart to accept
the fact that there is one God with one truth and one way for
everyone. You're too smart for that. You're
too intellectually sharp for that. You've been taught how
to avoid the singularity of the gospel. That's a double-minded
person. See, what I'm saying is, Most
of your college graduates that are in all of your secular fields
of disciplines and technology and work, all of these folks
that are working in high places are all really double-minded
people. Most of them have been exposed to biblical truth. Most
of them have had their stint in church. Most of them have
heard the basic truth that there's a God, humanity was made by Him,
humanity must answer to Him, and that God has a remedy for
their problem. But for them, it's implausible. This is what
we mean by the postmodern mindset that is so reprobate when you
tell men and women that God has given us a special revelation
of who we are and where we're going and what our problem is
and what the answer is. They say, that's implausible.
There can't be only one way. See, they taught themselves out
of the singularity of the character and nature of God and biblical
truth. They taught themselves to be
double-minded. You got that? See, these same folks who adamantly
and persistently deny God, they jump from Hinduism to Buddhism
to mysticism to paganism to atheism and all of the other isms. They
go back and forth through all the isms. They continue a moving
target lifestyle so that they never ever have to commit to
the truth. That's the double-minded heart.
And watch this, that kind of attitude can be glossed over
by the facade of being a very nice person. and and and ignorant
Christians who do not have as their ultimate goal and objective
when they are in the Environment and within the space and scope
of these people if you don't have as your ultimate objective
to exalt Christ and to talk about Christ you'll be deceived by
their appearance of being humble and saying you know, I just I
you know, I I really have a real struggle with those ideas I understand
what you're saying and I can see how that works for you and
But I really struggle with that. You know, I think about all of
the billions of people throughout time who have never heard that. And it just bothers me. And they're
making all these rationales like God can't solve his own problems. See, these are double minded
people and you will meet them. But here's what James says before
we go to our next heart. Are you ready? Let not that man
think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. Pastor, what are
you talking about? What are you getting at? Unbelief
is an affront to God. Are you hearing me? It's an affront
to a God who has made himself so clearly available to the human
race by all that he's done. See, it'd be one thing, listen,
it'd be one thing if God was hard to get to. It'd be one thing
if finding evidences and traces of God's goodness and his mercy
and his kindness and his providence in our life was hard to detect.
But God's evidence is everywhere. And you know what the Bible tells
me? He is not far from any one of us. If we would happily feel
after him, we would find him. So all of this acting like God
is hard to find, is perpetrating a lie. We have put a veil up
over our own conscience and our own heart and we have refused
to see the evidence. That's the double-minded person.
Now the next person I want to talk about is the cold-hearted
person. Go with me in your Bible to Matthew 24 verses 12 through
14 because this is where our master warned about this as well. Remember, guard your heart for
out of it are all the issues of life. Well, what do we mean
when we say the heart? We're talking about actually,
we're talking about the response and the reaction and the attitude
of the person or people over against God's revelation. You
guys got that? The heart in God's eyes is the
essence and reality of a person. It's who they really are on the
inside. It's what they really are in the core of their being.
Forget the cardiovascular muscle in your chest. We're not talking
physical things. We're talking about the real
you, the real mind, the real understanding, the real volition,
the real will, the thing that makes you function and act. That's
you. That's the heart of man. And
when you and I are confronted with biblical truth, we have
to make choices, don't we? And if our hearts are not right,
we're going to make choices that more or less cater to our desires
rather than to the truth of God. And this is what we are struggling
through and wanting to work through. So here's what our Master said.
He said in Matthew 24, that these days, those days, troublesome
days, difficult days, days of tribulation, in Matthew 24 we're
dealing with an apocalyptic period where the people of God are suffering
persecution much like the Hebrew books context. The context of
the Hebrew people in chapter 11 we already saw is that they
were being persecuted for the gospel, right? They were being
plundered of their goods. They were being made a gauging
stock. They were being defrauded. And
in the early church, one of the things our master clearly let
the saints know is, when you take up your cross and follow
me, the world is not going to applaud you. It's not going to
assist you. It's going to actually make life
difficult for you. And this is part of the challenge
for committing to Christ. This is why folks would rather
just go to church than to take Jesus seriously. Because once
you take Him seriously, now you're getting ready to find out whether
or not you are with Him and He is with you. But so long as you
are just outside of the reach of the temptations that come
from the world to test the authenticity of your Christian faith, you
don't have to actually worry about it. You got a good job,
nice home, nice paycheck, your life is going well, you are not
ruffling any feathers, you are not waking up any sleeping dogs,
you are not challenging any false notions or ideas, you don't want
to lose anything that you have. What I am saying is that will
never work in this life when it comes to the gospel. That
is not authentic Christianity. That's an accommodating position
that religious folks hold, but it's not authentic Christianity.
Am I making some sense? Please understand what I'm getting
at. And so our Master is saying in Matthew chapter 24, these
words, I want to start at verse 12. And I'll go through verse
14. He says, because iniquity shall
abound, the love of many shall what? But he that shall endure
unto the end, the same shall be what? You're going to see
all through the scriptures that God speaks to a kind of faith. that requires the believer to
understand that we must wait until the end before we can draw
any hard, fast conclusions as to where we ultimately stand
with God. Verse 14, and this gospel of
the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness
unto all nations and then shall the end come. He told the disciples
that many false prophets shall arise and shall deceive many,
and because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold."
I've taught on this for years. The passage can be understood
in several ways. But here's how I want you to understand the
idea of a cold heart. It's you and I being exposed
to a sinful world with all of its temptations and all of its
allurements. Last week, I talked about seduction.
And you and I have to make choices when we are being tempted and
allured by these seductive attractions. The choice we have to make is
whether or not we're gonna engage ourselves with them, which means
if I spend time with it, I'm not spending time with God. If
I make a choice to engage in an earthly carnal thing that
really amounts to nothing but the flesh, listen to me, that
choice is going to gradually erode my love for God. Doesn't that follow? Am I speaking
to reasonable people in the house? That when iniquity abounds, when
you, and what Christ is saying is you and I, that's why I said
in the opening of our message, I said, listen, you and I are
no different than the reprobate, no different than the apostate
apart from the grace of God. If you put a man or a woman in
an environment where they are tempted by things that the enemy
knows can draw them away from Christ, the only thing that's
going to keep you from going in that direction is a heart
that's white hot for Jesus Christ. Are you hearing me? See, one
of the remedies for a cold heart is love for Christ. One of the
means from keeping you from operating. Now, what does it mean to be
cold? to have a cold heart. That's something, isn't it? We'll
get a chance to explore that more fully when we deal with
the seven churches of Asia Minor. But a cold heart, according to
what Jesus is saying here, is really an indifferent heart.
Watch this. When you become cold, you become
indifferent. That just simply means you no
longer care about what matters. Just put this idea in the sphere,
in the realm of relationship. You got a family member or a
spouse, husband or wife, and that spouse is in trouble. But
because you are selfish and distracted by or given over to some other
issue preoccupied with it, you come to know that that person
is struggling, but you don't care because your heart is cold. Are you hearing me? And let's
say that person's reputation or that person's persona is threatened
and in danger, and they really do need your support. They need
you to actually stand up for them, to speak for them, to just
be by their side. Because after all, especially
in a husband-wife scenario where you're married, shouldn't the
wife be by the side of her husband? Shouldn't the husband be by the
side of his wife? Shouldn't the church be by the side of Christ?
See what I'm getting at? See what I'm getting at? So what
makes the people of God, for whom Christ died and shed his
blood to demonstrate an infinite love towards them, not willing
to reciprocate their love towards him in a situation where they
need to? A cold heart. And what will produce
a cold heart? A world filled with iniquity.
Sin of all kinds. I'll give you one little difficult
test that comes around this. I was listening to statistics
that were given recently about a war-torn country in Africa. This was just a couple of months
ago and I knew that it was parallel to what I'm talking about now
because what they stated was in a war-torn country where people
are constantly being bombed, by terrorist threats and by military
strikes, where the whole structure of society loses its stability. where people are constantly hiding
and trying to protect themselves just to survive on an everyday
level. Are you hearing me so far? Where the normalcy of life
has been interrupted, where you aren't working every day 9 to
5, where you aren't paying your bills, where you aren't going
home and cooking your food, where you're not enjoying your family,
extracurricular activities, and so on. All that's disrupted.
What they said is, in those environments, you will discover that from the
older people even down to the young people, the heart is made
cold. towards everyone else. Because
all the individual is seeking to do is survive for themselves. That they don't have it within
them to be able to care about their neighbor. Am I making some
sense? A cold heart. A cold heart. And what's fascinating, as I
get ready to deal with my next point in the cold heart, so we
can move to our next proposition is, if you read your Bible carefully,
God, who is a person, cares about how you care about him. If you read your Bible carefully,
God demands that we understand the personal reciprocal relationship
between us and him. I'm going to say it one more
time. God is not an abstract being
that is merely a set of propositions out there that you embrace on
an intellectual level. He's not a non-personal being.
He's a real personal being. He speaks and deals with you
and I on a personal level. That's why we're made in his
image. And he cares about what you think about him. Yes, he
does. In other words, it's relational.
Are you hearing me? And the healthiest Christian
will understand that what they have with God is a relationship. And the wisest Christian will
be able to see accurately through the Bible that the folks whom
God uses the most are people who take Him serious on a personal
level. The men and women that are ready
to jump for God, I mean jump for God, are people that know
that God has their back on a personal level. They're not guessing,
they're not blinded, they're not hoping they have a relationship
with Him. Read your Bible. Read your Bible. The men and women in Scripture
who did mighty feats of faith, which is what we're going to
get into when we get into the 11th chapter. Listen, it was because
they knew God. And this is eternal life, that
you may know Him, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom He
has sent. The purpose for the Spirit of
God is to bring us into the realities of God through Jesus Christ,
so that it's real. Why do men and women die for
God? Because it's personal. Why do
we live for God? Because it's personal. Are you
hearing what I'm saying? We live for him because it's
personal. I was telling my guys in our prayer, our men's meeting
last night. Fellas, when you wake up in the
morning, start talking to God. Just start talking. Don't wait
till you get on your knees. You won't talk to him. Your men
are way too practical. Men are way, it takes a long
time to go from being on your back to getting on your knees
and folding your hands and going through the form. Start talking
when you open your eyes. Just start talking to God. Tell
Him you're glad that He woke you up this morning. Tell Him
you're glad that your members are still intact. Tell Him you're
glad that nobody broke into your house. Tell Him you're glad that
you got a job to go to. Tell Him you're glad for your
family. Tell Him you're glad that you woke up in your right
mind, able to think about the glory of God. Tell Him to keep
you today. Watch over you today. Walk with
you today. Pastor, do you do that? Yes.
I've been doing it every day since God made me His child.
It didn't take a whole lot of doctrine or teaching to help
me understand that when God invaded my life and changed my soul and
quickened my mind and illumined my spirit in the midst of a jail
cell, that He was real, that the thing that I was supposed
to do is talk back to Him, even though I didn't understand who
He was. It didn't take a whole lot of theology to start talking
to God. You understand that didn't take didn't it doesn't take a
lot of fail forget listen I mean if you want to learn the Fibber
tools and hit the force and and in prevention and then shout
knots and all that go at all But you can just talk normal.
Hey, hey, Lord, you you know how brother thinking right now,
you you know what I need You know what? I'm struggling through
Okay, God, I got to go to court today. Now, you know be with
me in court and I mean, you know, if I got to go to jail, I'll
go to jail. But if I can get out, help a
brother get out. Now, I promise to do what's right.
I promise. I promise. Now you're laughing. You're laughing. And you're probably
laughing because you've never been in the trouble that I have.
Like my brothers and sisters who know the trouble that I know.
So you're laughing because you haven't been in those straits
like David was in those straits and Elijah was in those straits
and the prophets. Do you know most of my prophets,
brothers in the scriptures went to jail? And that's where they
had most of their communion with God. I'm going back through John
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. I'm going to share an analogy
with you before I close. Guess where he got that revelation?
In jail. My brother was in jail. You know,
sometimes God got to lock you up for a long time for you to
listen to him. This is why I tell people, you know, mothers will
call and write and they'll be all sad and everything. My son
just got put in jail. I said, settle down. Settle down. We got brothers and sisters in
jail. We got preachers in jail. No, we got brothers and sisters
who not only go there to preach, but we got brothers in there
preaching and sisters in there. It's most likely that they're
going to find more authentic gospel in prison than in your
local churches that they're free to go to every day. And all I
do is I ask myself before I share this with them, because I know
this is a hard truth for mothers. I said, Lord, is he that much
of a knucklehead that you got to put him in jail to get his
attention? And most of the time the answer is yes. It's hard
to tell mama that. Oh, Lord, Pastor, I want you
to pray that God will get him out. I never pray that. I don't
pray God get him out. I pray God save him. Don't not
get him out. The next point. that I want you
to see so I can go on. We've already looked at the hardened
heart, the divided heart, the cold heart. Now I want to deal
with one last heart, the proud heart. This is the proud heart,
and the psalmist speaks about this in Psalm chapter 10, verse
2. It's also in the book of Job, several places. The biggest problem
with my heart is pride. Yours too. But here's what the
psalmist says about the proud heart, and this is one of the
key reasons why people don't come to God. Why won't a person
who hears the overtures of the gospel in the fashion in which
we hear them? Isn't the gospel the most glorious
news in the universe? And why wouldn't a person come
to this God? Listen to what Psalm 10 verses
1 and 2 say. Are you ready? Why standest thou
afar off, O Lord? Why hidest thou thyself in times
of trouble? This is what the believer is
asking God when he's going through woes. And then the psalmist,
David, turns his attention to the ungodly. Now watch this.
The wicked in his what? Death persecute the poor. Let
them be taken in their own devices, which they have imagined. For
the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire, and blessed the covetous
whom the Lord abhors. Verse 4, watch this. The wicked,
through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God. God is not in all his thoughts. The ways of God are grievous. God's judgments are far above
out of his sight. For all his enemies, he puffs
at them. Why doesn't the wicked come to
God? Because of the pride of the heart.
Watch out for the pride of the heart, because the pride of the
heart is subtle. Adam and Eve fail because of sin. Sin separates
us from God, either temporarily or eternally, doesn't it? When
Adam and Eve rebelled against God, breaking God's law, the
first thing they did was run and what? Hide. That means they
were not coming near to God, they were drawing away from God.
God was teaching us when once we sin against Him, the fellowship
is broken and now certain phobias kick in. Unless you really truly
know God and are able to overcome these phobias and come to God
when you're in trouble, which is a work of grace, by the way,
you're going to run from God naturally. Adam and Eve ran from
God. They ran from God for two reasons,
fear. Are you hearing me? Fear and then shame. Those are the two things that
will cause a man or woman to run from God, fear and shame.
And both of those are solved by the gospel, are they not?
It's not the fear of God solved by the work of Christ on Calvary
Street, for which he says to his elect all the time, fear
not. Fear not, and is not shame resolved by the atoning work
of Jesus Christ? Doth he not clothe us in his
righteousness? Why then do we not come to God? So God's children ran and hid
out of fear and shame. Fear and shame. Pride will cause
you to fear. It's sort of an irrational fear. Pride will cause you to be ashamed.
But I want you to see the progression. So they had to learn something
about the fact that when we sin against God, naturally rerun.
And if it wasn't for the mercy of God hunting them down, they
would have never came back. See, we teach it all the time.
You don't come to God unless God comes to you first. God has
to come get us when we're in trouble. Am I telling it true?
we'll run from God. But I want you to see the net
effect of the proud heart in the life of Adam's fallen children. The next children they had was
Cain and Abel. You know what Cain did to his
brother Abel? Killed him. You know what God did in his
mercy? He hunted Cain down. See, if God doesn't hunt us down,
we're going to hell. God hunted Cain down and he said,
Cain, where your brother at? And I want to show you something
about the proud heart. You know what Cain said? Am I
my brother's keeper? You know what Christ would say
to you and me? You are your brother's keeper. See, but the heart had
hardened and be gotten and became proud and proud enough for him
to kill his brother. And then when God came to him,
he had an audacious, arrogant, pompous answer for God. So that's
the proud heart. When you actually corner a person
with truth, they can either yield in humility and say, I did it. I did it. And God says, you know
what? There's mercy with me that you
might fear me and love me and adore me. There's mercy. That's
all Cain would have had to do. I did it. Am I telling the truth?
That's all Cain would have. I did it. And God would have
given him the remedy. Your brother already told you
you needed a sacrifice. Go to the sacrifice, that's where
I accept sinners. But the proud heart will keep
a man from coming from God. A proud heart will keep a woman
from coming from God. And so these four are the warnings
that you and I need to take up, which brings me to my next point.
What is it, going back to our text, what is it to trod underfoot
the blood of the Son of God? What language is this? Not gonna
be long, I'm trying to be illustrative with it and then moving forward
because I just don't want to develop it too much. But the
Hebrew writer knows the purpose for the device of this terminology.
Obviously, the Hebrew people were the people who were culprits
in killing the Savior, weren't they? So, structuring language
when you're trying to convince the soul using right and proper
analogies and illustrations are critical, aren't they? The Hebrew
people would have been keenly aware that it was the Jews along
with Pontius Pilate and the Roman centurions who killed Jesus.
So the Hebrew writer, as he did in Hebrews 6, warning them about
putting Christ to an open shame and crucifying Him all over again,
nailing into their conscience, hey, you did this once. Now you're
believing the gospel or you're trusting Christ, you're going
to church and persecution is coming and now you're ready to
go back to Judaism or works religion. Hey, you're getting ready to
trod underfoot the precious blood of the Son of God. Do you see
what I'm getting at? How he's using that device to
let them know to turn away from the gospel is not a thing of
indifference. When a person turns away from
the gospel, they have to actually now become the enemy of God. So stay with me, here's the point.
When he uses the metaphor of trodding underfoot, do you know
what that means? You are trampling under something. You are despising
it. You are condemning it. You are
saying it's nothing. It's not even worth existing.
Jesus said in Matthew 5, if the salt loses its savor, it's good
for nothing but to be thrown out and what? Trod underfoot
of men. For the man or the woman to hear
the gospel, profess to believe in Christ, and then walk away
from the gospel is not a neutral thing. They are saying the gospel
is good for nothing, but worthy to be trodden underfoot of men.
And this is the imagery that God the Father would have for
the man or the woman to profess to believe in Christ and then
turn around and reject the claims of the gospel. You are trodding
underfoot the precious blood of the Son of God, despising
it. openly putting to shame the blood? Are you crazy? So stay with me
for a moment. Here's what I want to say about
that. And I want to develop this part. It is very hard. It's not easy to do. It's very
hard to apostatize. It's very hard to move from having
been taught the gospel thoroughly to rejecting the gospel fully. In other words, when a church
has been taught biblical truth, and then two or three generations
down the line, you look up and that's a liberal church that
does not believe the Bible, completely abandoned the atoning work of
Jesus Christ, the exclusivity of Christ's cross work, and the
reality of who God is, and all that we've said, that takes time.
Why, pastor? Because the gospel, when it's
taught to us, are like cords that wrap around our mind and
our soul. multiple chords Chords of truth
I'm talking about strong cables of truth that constitute the
whole doctrine of the atonement See the blood is not just a mystical
pagan concept. It's a full plenary of doctrinal
truth concerning the nature and character of God concerning the
condition of man and concerning the remedy of this all-wise God
to solve his problem and When you and I are brought into sound
biblical truth concerning the blood, we are taught multiple
chords of truth. Chord number one, God is holy. Chord number two, man is sinful. Chord number three, the just
judgment upon that man is death. Chord number four, he needs a
Savior. Chord number five, Christ is
the only Savior. Chord number six, the death of
Christ on Calvary's tree is the wisdom and power of God to save
the hell bound sinner. Chord number seven, God must
deliver him from his sin by the death of Jesus Christ on Calvary's
tree. Chord number eight, it comes
through the preaching of the word of God, the teaching of
the word of God, the work of the Holy Ghost in the souls of
men and women. Chord after chord, after chord,
after chord, after chord. Are you hearing me? Chord number
10, the blood of Christ justifies us from the guilt and condemnation
of our having broken the law of God. Chord number 12, the
blood of Christ rests the holiness of God in his need to Vengeance
himself take vengeance himself against our sin. It's called
Justification it's called propitiation. It's called satisfying the justice
of God, which we still believe by the way We believe that God
is not only a loving God But he is a holy God and he must
punish sin and we see that fully developed in the death of Jesus
Christ God poured his wrath on Christ. That's a chord that gets
me and And he has satisfied his justice in Christ. That's a cord
that gets me. And he has justified me by the
blood of Jesus Christ. That's a cord. He has purged
my sin by the blood of Christ. He has raised me from the dead
by the blood of Christ. He's made me a new creature by
the blood of Christ. He's opened a covenant, a new
covenant of grace by the blood of Christ. I'm bound by cords. Cords. Hosea chapter 11 verse
4, I have drawn thee with cords of a man. That man is Christ. I've been drawn by the cords
of Christ crucified. Have you? I love it. I love being bound by the exclusive
work of Jesus Christ alone. This is a straight jacket of
gospel truth that shuts the sinner up to Christ alone. It's a straight
jacket of a single way to salvation by a single person, by a single
act, once for all. This is the straight and narrow
way of Christ alone. If I'm going to heaven, God has
to shut me up to Christ. It's Christ or hell. Christ or hell. And I don't mind being tied up
to Christ. I don't mind being tied up to
Christ. Do you? But we've got Houdini's. We've got Houdini's. And they work their way out of
the straitjackets. Have you ever seen them? Have you ever seen
them work their way out of the straitjacket? Houdini's. They start working their way
out of one sleeve and then working their way out of the other sleeve.
Have you seen it? Houdini's. Who can work their way out of
straitjackets? and then they get their shoulder out from underneath
one and then the other shoulder and they work the jacket up around
their neck and they start using their mouth to get the jacket
up across their head and the next thing you know they have
worked their way out of the straight jacket The apostate, the reprobate
church, works its way out of the truth of the gospel, chord
by chord by chord, chord by chord by chord, abandoning biblical
truth by biblical truth, doctrine by doctrine, truth by truth,
until they are free from the gospel. I don't want to be free
from the gospel. I don't want to be free from
the gospel. I want to be a slave. I want to be bound by every straitjacket
truth of the gospel there is. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
The Hebrew writer says, not only are they trotting underfoot the
precious blood of the Son of God, but they are also doing
despite to the spirit of grace. Listen to the language. Listen
to the language. Here's what he says. Verse 29,
of how much sore punishment ought ye thought worthy he who hath
trodden underfoot the Son of God and hath counted the blood
of the covenant wherewith he was what? That is what we call
corporate sanctification. This is what I tell folks who
get, listen to this. I tell folk that people love
to get excited about the gospel here at Grace, right? And you
ought to. I hope you stay excited the rest of your life. But they
love to get excited about the gospel here. And then they do
what everybody should do. They make a profession of faith,
and then they're ready to jump in that hot water. The baptism. That's what you're supposed to
do. Draw near to God in a true heart, having your conscience
sprinkled from an evil conscience, your heart sprinkled from an
evil conscience, and your bodies washed in pure water. An allusion
to baptism. That's how you come into the
church. But I warn people, just because you got in that nice
warm water doesn't mean you have been washed in your heart. The
washing of the heart is the work of God. He must sprinkle you
with clean water and wash you clean from your uncleanliness.
You can go in dirty and come out dirty. And then in a few
weeks and months, we never see you again because your zeal for
God was superficial. You were only externally sanctified. Am I making some sense, brethren?
You weren't sanctified in your heart. You didn't give God your
heart. You went through the motions of religion. We're getting ready
to have new members class in two weeks. I'm going to tell
them. Now, whoever wants to sign yourself a baptism, listen, we
love it. We want to baptize. We're obedient
to Christ. But we're letting you know that
the moment you step into those waters, you are telling the world
and the devil you have joined God's army. And we're going to
find out whether or not you are serious five years from now. What's going on when we due despite
to the spirit of grace. Listen to what he says. After
that he hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he
was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done what despite to
the spirit of grace. What is the Spirit of God doing
here? And what is the author trying
to get across here with regards to doing despite to the Spirit
of grace? He's trying to help us understand that it's the work
of the Spirit of God, as you know, to bring to reality in
our conscious all these gospel truths that we've talked about
for this last hour. When men and women sit under the gospel
as you have today, you have sat under the Spirit of grace. The
ministry of the gospel is the ministry of the Spirit, who by
the grace of God, or through the grace of God, or in accordance
to the grace of God, shows you Jesus Christ. The work of the
Spirit is to reveal Christ to you. And when He, the Spirit
of truth, has come, He will convince the world of sin, and of righteousness,
and of judgment, and He will take the things of mine and show
them unto you. He will not speak of Himself.
When you come into a true gospel church, it's about the Son of
the living God. And the goal of the Holy Ghost
is to bring you near to God through Christ, to reveal to your conscience
and to your mind the truths of the gospel. So you learn a whole
lot by the Spirit of grace. It makes you accountable to God.
It makes you a count. You can be even among those who
are a partaker of the Holy Ghost, tasting of the good word of God
and the world to come and be drawn into the dynamic of the
presence of God. Listen, you are among the people
of God right now. You are among the people. Listen,
you get no closer to glory than you do in a church where they're
authentically born again men and women who love Christ. This
is as close as you get. other than being saved yourself. You can be close and not in. And your head can be filled with
all sorts of biblical truth. You can even teach others, Judas
did, and still be lost. What happened? You were afforded
all of the blessings of the knowledge of the gospel by the Spirit of
grace, short of regeneration. This is why Jesus said in Mark
16, he that believeth not shall be damned. I'm going to close
with my premise for this exhortation. And this is the last point in
our outline. This is very important for you to hear. The last point
in our outline. Listen to what it says. What
is the warrant for the perseverance to which the Hebrew writer is
calling us? You hear it in verse 36. Here it is. Are you there?
For we, you, all of us have need of what? Now watch this. That
after, after, not before, not during, after you have done what? You might receive the promise.
You know what he's calling us to? Perseverance. Do you understand that? And if
you are careful in your Bible reading, watch this now. If you're
careful in your Bible reading, the Bible always says it's the
end of the matter that actually tells the story, not the beginning
and not the middle, the end. And so the Bible will clearly
say, as we saw in Matthew 24, he that endured to the what?
Shall be what? Because there is no such thing
as a past tense salvation. There's no such thing as I was
saved. The Bible knows nothing about
a past tense salvation. All the Bible knows about is
a false salvation and a true salvation, a false faith and
a true faith. And all true faith has as its
expression in scripture. Are you ready? I was saved. I am being saved and I will be
saved. Was saved for by grace. Are you saved through faith and
that not of yourselves? It's a gift of God Aries test
I was saved long ago when God in his mercy chose me in Christ
and when Christ died for me I died in Christ when he rose I rose
with Christ and when he went to heaven, I went to heaven with
Christ Otherwise second Timothy 1 9 means nothing second Timothy
1 9 God who saved us past tense, and called us. Do you know when
God calls a guilty sinner to himself? He doesn't call the
guilty sinner to help the sinner get saved, but to tell the sinner
he's already saved. If the sinner ever comes to know
who Christ is, he'll know that his salvation was secure 2,000
years ago on Calvary Street. Am I making some sense? My salvation
is a person and the revelation of faith planted in my heart
to be able to see Jesus for who he is and what he did 2,000 years
ago is what gives me a revelation of God. I love the way Zachariah
put it. Simeon put it. The old man. He
said, mine eyes have seen thy salvation. That salvation was
a child. God who saved us and then he
did what? Called us. Called us how? By the gospel. not according
to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which
we had with Christ before the world began. Did you get that? When the gospel comes to us,
it comes to us about a salvation accomplished. And that we enter
into that salvation by the work of the Holy Ghost, planting faith
in our heart. I was saved, but then the Bible tells me I am
being saved. 1 Corinthians chapter 118. For the preaching of the gospel
is foolishness to the world that is presently perishing. But unto
us who are being saved, we are being saved. It is the power
of God unto salvation. Is it the power of God in the
salvation? Is God keeping us? Is God preserving us? Is God
saving us? Is He conforming us to His image?
Will He infallibly bring us to that place where we will look
just like Jesus Christ one day? I'm being saved. Are you hearing
what I'm saying? I'm being saved. And then one
day, according to 1 Peter 1, verse 9, the Bible is clear that
we are to suffer the trials of this life. Knowing that the end
of our faith, what do you mean end of our faith? That's what
I'm talking about. Our faith has an end. What is it, pastor? The salvation of my soul. That's
why we are exhorted to continue in the faith. If I'm truly saved,
I'll persevere, won't I? If I persevere, I'll end up totally
saved, won't I? Did not God save me in my soul
and in my body? Did not He pay for the whole
of my being? Does not God mean to have me in His presence one
day? So see, what the true believer does not do is pretend he's already
in glory. Now, when you get on your deathbed,
here's what you can say. I have fought a good fight. I have kept the faith. Henceforth is laid up for me
a crown of righteousness, and to everyone else who loves is
appearing. See, this is called not being
presumptuous. It's called making your calling and election sure.
Now let me show you something in Jeremiah chapter 32 verse
39. Pull it up. See, this is God's promise to
His elect. Are you hearing me? See, God's going to have a people
that glorify Him. But none of his people are going
to be presumptuous and arrogant and pompous in this life. I'm
saved, but I'm being saved. I was delivered, but I'm being
delivered right now. Now, come on now, aren't there
some times in your life where you really need to be delivered
from yourself? See, God won't let you have a
lapse here and a lapse there to keep you from talking like
you're already in glory. So we can get our theology lopsided.
And I know people, what they often do, because we love the
doctrine of God's sovereignty and the finality of the cross
work of Christ. And we lean heavily on that as
a biblical truth. The completion and the totality
of our salvation in Christ. But the tenor of scripture demands
that we give the whole counsel. Am I telling the truth? So that
we rightly divide the word of God. Here's what God says. Are
you ready? Listen to this. And I will give
them what kind of heart? That's the kind of heart I need.
You know what one heart is? That's the heart of being free
of double-mindedness. I will give them one heart. Who
gives us that heart? And I will give them what way? Who is that
one way? That they may what? How long? That sounds like God knows how
to keep a brother, doesn't he? Now watch this. For the good
of them and their children after them. Lord, let it be so. Lord,
let it be so. Lord, let it be so. Give me the
next verse. Listen to it. And I will make
an everlasting covenant with them. Will you notice you didn't
make the covenant with him? He made the covenant with you
that I will not turn away from them to do them good, but I will
put my fear in their hearts. Watch this, that they shall not
depart from me. There will be multitudes of people
who will depart from God, but God's elect won't, because God
will see to it. He knows how to dial the heart
in, doesn't he? Doesn't he know how to dial it
in? God knows how to dial the heart in. He knows how to lock
the sinner into God. See, He can teach you and me
like the disciples learn, Lord, where should we go? You have
the words of eternal life. Paul said it in 1 Corinthians,
2 Corinthians 5, the love of Christ constrains us. I want
to be constrained by that love, don't you? I want to be shut
up to that love. My problem is my old sinful heart. But God doesn't have a problem
with it. I want God to teach us to love the gospel, love his
grace, and be dog serious about the whole of scripture. Because
we are headed somewhere. And we ought not to give people
the false hope that we are so sure that we're there as if we
were there. Walk humbly with the Lord your
God. Make your calling and election sure every day. Apply to the
blood of Christ every time you get in trouble. and encourage
the saints of God to do the same thing. And tell lost sinners
there ain't but one way. And when they say that phrase
ain't don't work, say it again. There ain't but one way. There's
only one way. And that one way is Christ. Either
Christ or hell. Amen. Amen.